New Delhi: A court, while acquitting all surviving accused in a 2020 northeast Delhi riots case, observed that it was “a sad situation” when failure to produce a valid certificate led to the exclusion of crucial electronic evidence.
Flagging that investigating officers are often “not conversant” with the mandatory requirements of Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act, additional sessions judge Parveen Kumar Singh directed that the Delhi Police commissioner be apprised of the lapses to “ensure electronic evidence was collected, authenticated and placed on record in accordance with the law” by investigators. “More often than not, certificates under Section 65B of IE Act as furnished by the prosecution do not satisfy the statutory requirements,” the judge observed, noting that similar shortcomings had surfaced in other riots cases. “Investigating officers are… often unable to scrutinise the certificates furnished to them to ascertain whether these certificates meet the requirements…
Because its accompanying certificate failed to meet statutory requirements, the judge held that the CCTV footage was inadmissible. He also flagged inconsistencies in a witness’s account of when he was shown the footage.